National News

Top AIDS Researchers Were on Doomed Plane

(NEWSER) – As many as 108 of the 298 people killed onMalaysia Airlines Flight 17 were researchers, activists, and health workers bound for a major AIDS conference in Melbourne, delegates have been told. Among them was Dutch researcher Joep Lange, one of the world's top HIV experts. He had been researching the disease for more than 30 years; one conference delegate tells the Australianhe was "the father of AIDS research in the developing world." Another expert tells the Guardian that "there were some serious HIV leaders on that plane" and that the crash "will have ramifications globally" on research.